Backlash

by Nick Oldham

  ‘Why?’ Henry said, eager to keep the talking going.

  ‘You’re back on the investigation, aren’t you? I got the lovely Jane Roscoe out of the way. You should be thankful, but you’re not, are you? You just don’t see it, do you?’

  ‘All I see is a person who needs help.’

  ‘Fuck you!’ Taylor shouted again, losing it. He went for Henry.

  The baton sliced through the air. Henry ducked and lost his footing in Blackthorn’s blood, his ankle twisted under him and he fell awkwardly, knee-down onto the dead body. Automatically his hands went out, palms down, to break his fall, but they went straight into Blackthorn’s gaping stomach. Henry twisted away from the intestines, repelled and horrified, but also aware that Taylor’s baton was swinging towards him again. He bobbed his head and launched himself away from Blackthorn’s body, rolling across the room, aware his hands were covered in blood and body slime. He scrambled towards the fireplace where he could see a poker.

  Taylor moved quickly. He whammed the baton into Henry’s side. The pain was incredible, but it was only from the strike of the baton, not an electric discharge. Henry rolled with the blow, reaching desperately for the poker with his fingertips. Missing it.

  Taylor bore down on him, raising the baton, a scream on his lips. Henry covered his head and kicked out wildly, catching the back of Taylor’s knees, forcing him to stumble backwards. Henry drove himself at Taylor, going for a bearhug. Both men, entwined, struggling for advantage, rolled across the floor and over Captain Blackthorn’s body, which suddenly seemed to come to life as they fought over it, his legs and arms twitching madly, head turning, and noises being driven out of the windpipe.

  With a roar, Taylor broke free, still keeping hold of the baton which he tried to bring back into play, to get it onto Henry’s chest to deliver the stun.

  Henry pulled away and punched Taylor as they rolled back over the body, its arms flailing. The two men battled amongst entrails and loops of rubbery intestines. At the back of his mind, Henry was utterly repulsed by this, but could not afford to give a shit. He might well be sloshing about in the organs and innards of a dead man, but he was fighting for his own life too. The two men split apart.

  Henry tried to come in with a head butt. It did not connect. Taylor managed to swing the baton across Henry’s lower back with a stinging blow.

  They were face to face, still on the floor, pawing at each other, each trying to get into a position of power. They slid towards the hearth. Henry kicked and punched, while Taylor tried to use the shock baton. Henry found himself underneath Taylor, trying to grab the wrist of the hand holding the baton – then, bang! Henry’s head smacked against the edge of the raised hearth with such force that his brain jarred for a precious moment. A split second was long enough for Taylor to rear up on his knees and press the end of the baton onto Henry’s chest, above his heart. Taylor laughed victoriously. Henry waited for the punch of the shock. He knew that all Taylor had to do was lightly pull the trigger in the baton handle and 150,000 volts would shoot through him and then Taylor would butcher him. Henry braced himself.

  Click. Nothing.

  Taylor pressed the baton harder into Henry’s chest. Click, click. Still nothing.

  The realisation suddenly passed between both men: for whatever reason the baton was not working correctly.

  Henry was first to react. He grabbed the baton and tore it out of Taylor’s grip. Taylor lost his nerve. He ran. Henry went after him, leaping across the gutted corpse and out of the flat, spinning into the hallway to see Taylor disappear out of the front door, which he slammed behind him. Henry slowed slightly, thinking that Taylor might just be on the other side, waiting to pounce.

  He opened it gingerly but the man had gone down the front steps and was running towards the promenade. A car was coming slowly up the street which Taylor flagged down, having no trouble in so doing because he was in uniform. Henry shouted a warning, which was lost in the night. Taylor opened the driver’s door and heaved the poor unsuspecting driver across the bonnet of a parked car. Taylor dropped into the seat and accelerated towards Henry who was now in the middle of the street.

  Henry was no fool. He jumped smartly out of the way of the approaching car and ran to the CID car, scrambled into it and had started it as Taylor veered left out of the street towards the town centre. Henry crunched into first and stepped on the gas.

  Christ, he had been good. Taylor’s histrionics at the scenes of the murders of Geri Peters and Joey Costain had taken everyone in. But it had all been a tissue of lies: he had not chased anyone through the hospital at all; he had raced along the corridors himself, forcing people out of the way, chasing a shadow that existed only in his mind. Henry realised why he had been so unsettled at the scene of Geri Peters’ murder: there had been no coffee cup. Taylor had said he had been out to get coffee when Geri Peters was being murdered but, of course, he had himself been smothering her. No doubt he had tried to hang Geri earlier in her cell and attempted to make it look like suicide. Taylor’s name had been on the list of people the custody officer remembered seeing in the office that night. Taylor hadn’t had any prisoners in the cells, so why had he been there? Henry remembered Geri Peters’ words before she had been put into the ambulance: ‘One of yours.’ At the time they had meant nothing to him. Now they meant everything. ‘One of yours’ meant PC Taylor.

  Taylor drove onto the promenade. It was virtually deserted at this time of night. He wasn’t going too fast and Henry was about a hundred metres behind him.

  Henry had the list of similar killings, all linked by MO, but not by motive – until he had worked it out. Louise Graveson was a lawyer specialising in equal opportunity and racial cases. She had just won a quarter of a million pounds for a black female police officer at an employment tribunal where the allegation had been of sexual and racial abuse by a white male sergeant. Another victim, a black woman councillor from north London, had been a witness at another employment tribunal where a black man had won damages for unfair dismissal on racial grounds. Then there was the police support staff worker, again in London, who had ended the career of a white police inspector who had harassed a black PC. A journalist in the West Midlands who was constantly rubbishing the way in which minority groups were treated by large organisations.

  Taylor had been waging an insidious guerrilla-like murder campaign against anyone with the temerity to stand up for the rights of the minority on behalf of Hellfire Dawn.

  Taylor speeded up. So did Henry who was desperate to stay with him.

  Henry picked up his radio; glancing down at the display he fiddled with the channel button and glancing up, he drove. He locked back onto Blackpool’s radio frequency. ‘Thank God for that,’ he breathed.

  ‘Inspector Christie to Blackpool. Urgent. In pursuit of a silver Honda Accord being driven by PC John Taylor, who is a murder suspect. No time to explain. Suspect is armed and dangerous. We’re on the prom, north towards Talbot Square. Assistance to stop him please.’

  The communications operator was cool despite the shock of hearing what he had just heard. He began to deploy patrols, then stopped and said, ‘PC Taylor, go ahead.’

  As the radio was not on talk-thru, Henry could not hear Taylor’s transmission.

  ‘Inspector Christie,’ communications called.

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Message from PC Taylor. If you do not withdraw, the little package will not be found. Understood?’

  ‘Received.’ Shit, the bastard was making demands now.

  ‘PC Taylor also requests talk-thru be put on.’

  ‘Denied – we keep with him. Keep deploying patrols. I want him stopped and arrested.’

  Henry was now right up behind Taylor in his hijacked car, leaving just enough room between the two cars to brake if necessary. Taylor’s car surged ahead.

  ‘Change of plan,’ Henry said, ‘put talk-thru on.’

  ‘Talk-thru on.’

  ‘Inspector to PC Taylor. Come on, pull
in, it’s over, John, there’s nothing more for you to achieve.’

  No reply.

  ‘Talk-thru off,’ Henry ordered again, and when it was off he almost shouted, ‘Where is my assistance? I haven’t seen another cop car yet. Just passing the junction with Chapel Street – he’s just run a red light, I’m going through too.’ Henry shot through, unscathed.

  The Tower rose above them on the right. At the next junction was another set of lights, again on red. Henry watched as Taylor’s car hurtled towards the lights, accelerating all the time, obviously with no intention of stopping. He must have been approaching 60 mph as he crossed the junction. Suddenly a police transit van shot out in front of him, blue lights flashing, and skidded into the path of Taylor’s car.

  Instinctively Henry braked.

  Taylor’s stolen car broadsided the police van, driving into it like a piston. The Transit van was hit right on the seam in the centre of the side panel, the impact bursting it open. The van flipped over onto the tram tracks and Taylor’s vehicle skidded off at right angles from its original south–north path, slithering out of control, brake lights flashing, towards the sea-wall railings. It crunched into them probably still doing in excess of 40 mph, with a shredding, tearing of metal.

  Henry skidded to a halt. He leapt out, shouting the situation down into his radio, requesting an ambulance, and ran towards the smashed police van which had rolled to a halt on its roof. The back wheels were still spinning, the engine roaring. Henry was terrified of what he might find.

  As he got there, the driver was extricating himself out of the shattered driver’s door window, unscathed. He stood up shakily. It was Dermot Byrne. He smiled coolly, if a little wonkily, then leaned on the van for support as his legs buckled under him.

  ‘I’m OK . . . I think . . . go get him.’

  Other police cars were now turning up. Henry moved away reluctantly and trotted to the mangled wreck of Taylor’s car. The owner would not be well pleased to be told that a car commandeered by a cop – who had assaulted him in the process – was now a write-off.

  Steam hissed out of the engine block. Henry could smell petrol. Taylor was slumped over the wheel. There was a head-shaped indentation in the windscreen. Henry shone his torch in and could see that Taylor’s body was contorted under the steering column and dashboard which had crumpled with the impact. There was a lot of blood about, a lot coming out of Taylor’s right ear. Not a good sign.

  ‘Don’t be fucking dead,’ Henry said.

  He pulled at the door. It would not budge. He used his feet for purchase and wrenched at it as hard as he could. It opened, twisting on broken hinges, but only about eighteen inches. Just wide enough for him to shoulder in and lean towards Taylor’s mangled body.

  He reached for Taylor’s blood-soaked head and lifted his face away from the rim of the steering wheel, turning it towards him. It had been smashed beyond recognition into a bloody pulp. The eyes were closed, there was no sign of life. Repulsed, Henry was about to lay Taylor’s head down when suddenly his eyes flicked open, startling him. It was like something out of a horror movie. He almost dropped the head in shock. One eye socket was just a black hole and Henry could not work out where the actual eyeball was. It had either been pushed into his head, or was in the car somewhere.

  Taylor’s breath blew bloody bubbles from his lips as his mouth worked. He was speaking. There were words there. Henry put his ear close to the lips.

  ‘Vince, is that you?’

  ‘Yeah,’ Henry said immediately.

  ‘I did it . . . I did everything you said, didn’t I?’ He coughed, spraying Henry’s face with blood and spittle.

  ‘Yeah,’ said Henry, keeping in there, trying to ignore the blood, ‘but you have to tell me where Roscoe is.’

  ‘I did them all for you . . . is it done?’

  ‘Yeah, it’s done. Where have you put Jane Roscoe?’

  ‘Have we won?’

  ‘Yes, we have.’ Henry knew that in a matter of seconds Taylor would be dead. He asked again. ‘Where is Roscoe?’

  ‘In the garden, buried,’ he gasped and died. Henry dropped the head back onto the steering wheel. With his handkerchief he wiped the blood and saliva from his face.

  ‘Shit,’ he said, drawing out of the vehicle. He sank to his knees and in despair, held his head in his hands. He was overwhelmed with horror that he had been unable to prevent the death of another woman. He rocked, choking back the sobs.

  A hand touched his shoulder. Through his fingers Henry looked up at Byrne who had staggered from the Transit. Other cops were behind him.

  ‘I’ve lost her,’ Henry wailed. ‘I’ve lost her.’

  ‘Who – lost who? What’s going on, Henry?’ he demanded.

  ‘Jane – it was him. He did it. Killed Mark Evans, too. Took Jane and now I’ve fucked it up and we’ll never find her. She could be alive, he talked about her still being alive. She won’t be for much longer.’

  Byrne was still dazed from the accident. He slumped down by Henry and placed an arm across his shoulders. ‘Did he say anything?’

  ‘In the garden – buried in the garden – that was all. Christ, she must be in a tomb somewhere.’

  ‘No, no, wait,’ Byrne’s mind cleared quickly. ‘Taylor was on the pre-conference search team. He searched and sealed the Winter Gardens. He called them the garden.’

  The words permeated only slowly into Henry’s brain. ‘How many search teams are on nights?’

  ‘Two, I think. One at the Winter Gardens, one at the Imperial.’

  ‘Let’s get moving then.’

  FRIDAY

  Twenty-Four

  He watched all the faces around the table very carefully, judging their reactions as the voices on the tape recorder spoke. Only he and Andrea Makin had heard the tape fully before and knew what to expect. Makin was sitting impassively, deep dark rings around her eyes, probably wishing she had never ventured north of Watford. Karl Donaldson was another at the table. He had a good idea of what the tape contained, so was not surprised.

  The other two men had not heard the tape and it would be a shock to them. They were ACC Fanshaw-Bayley and the British Prime Minister.

  They were in the main restaurant of the Imperial Hotel. The only other people in the room were the PM’s two protection officers lounging by the doors, out of earshot, preventing any unauthorised entry.

  The first tape they listened to was an edited version of the interview between Makin and Martin Franklands. It began with criminal matters concerning the murder of an undercover police officer on Blackpool promenade. Franklands named the two men who had beaten the cop to death. The interview progressed to the planting of a bomb in the Pink Ladies’ Club, a bomb which had been sourced from an American terrorist whom Franklands claimed he could not identify. Franklands went on to freely implicate Vincent Bellamy, leader of the right-wing organisation called Hellfire Dawn, in the murder and the planting of the bomb, saying that both had been carried out on his instructions.

  Makin stopped the tape. ‘He’s singing like a demented budgie,’ she said, ‘telling us everything about Hellfire Dawn. Bombs in Soho, Birmingham and Brighton, not American sourced, but all planted and planned by Bellamy. Also the murder of two Pakistani youths in Tooting and the firebombing of a Jewish family in York, which killed two little kids. All Bellamy’s work.’

  The prime minister fidgeted. ‘All very interesting, but purely police matters as far as I can tell. Where is this leading?’ he asked frostily. ‘I deliver my end of conference speech in under an hour.’ He looked pointedly at his Rolex.

  Andrea Makin was unfazed. Having managed to pull this meeting together by getting the Chief Constable of Lancashire to intervene directly with the prime minister and request it as a matter of urgency, she was not going to be hurried. ‘Please bear with me, sir,’ she said, equally frostily.

  The timbre of her voice made him sit back.

  ‘I’ll fast forward it a little.’ She pressed the button,
watching the counter click by, stopped it and pressed ‘play’.

  Franklands was speaking again. He was in full flow and had a lot to get off his chest. This time the PM leaned forwards, elbows on the table, listening hard. His face dropped in shock.

  FB’s face changed dramatically, too.

  After ten minutes more, Makin stopped the tape, ejected the cassette and slotted it into its plastic box.

  ‘These are very serious allegations,’ the prime minister said gravely.

  ‘Which is why I wanted you to hear them, and no one else, for obvious reasons,’ Makin said.

  ‘Can they be substantiated in any way?’

  Makin nodded. ‘As a result of what Franklands said to me, I arrested Vincent Bellamy and the other two implicated in the murder early this morning.’

  Makin had taken a well-tooled-up arrest squad and raided the Berlin Hotel just after six that morning. Using a diagram of the hotel provided by Franklands, she and her teams quickly found the rooms of the suspects. She had gone for Bellamy. There had been no knocking – they had burst in unannounced, finding Bellamy, dressed as Adolf Hitler still, being fellated by the hotel receptionist with the tattoos on her breasts. Makin found that there were swastikas tattooed on her buttocks, too. The whole thing had been a sight to behold . . .

  She rid her mind of the montage and continued, ‘Once Bellamy realised he was being dropped in it big style, it didn’t take long for him to start running scared at first, and then to start boasting about his achievements for the people of Britain.’

  ‘And this is leading where?’ the PM cut in again.

  Makin apologised. She was tired and rambling a bit. ‘I put to him the facts that Franklands had told me about Hellfire Dawn and its backers.’ She paused. ‘Incidentally there are two financial analysts already beginning to unravel accounts . . . however, this is what Bellamy said.’ She dropped a new tape into the machine and pressed ‘play’.

  ‘We have been bank-rolled one hundred percent.’ Bellamy cackled on the tape. ‘A government minister has provided us with funds to finance our activities from his own resources – he is a multi-millionaire in his own right and believes in the work of Hellfire Dawn. He intends to change the face of British politics in response to the backlash across the country against the favouritism shown to blacks and ethnics. He intends to stamp out immigration and the ridiculous employment practices which ensure niggers and Pakis get jobs which rightfully belong to white folk. Where necessary we will drive them out of their homes, destroy their businesses. We will be his army. Hellfire Dawn will rule the streets –’